BU R N I N G B R I G H T Essays in Honour of David Bindman BURNING BRIGHT Essays in Honour of David Bindman BURNING BRIGHT Essays in Honour of David Bindman * Edited by Diana Dethloff, Tessa Murdoch and Kim Sloan, with Caroline Elam First published in 2015 by UCL Press University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT Text © Contributors, 2015 Images © Named copyright holders on p.276 This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Non-derivative 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work for personal and non-commercial use providing author and publisher attribution is clearly stated. Further details about CC BY licenses are available at http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0. This license does not cover third-party copyright material. It is the obligation of the user to ensure that any reuse complies with the copyright policies of the owner of that content, as listed on p.276. The publishers wish to acknowledge the support of The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art and The Henry Moore Foundation. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from The British Library. ISBN: 978-1-910634-18-9 (Pbk.) Available to download free: www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press ISBN: 978-1-910634-34-9 (PDF) DOI: 10.14324/111.9781910634189 Designed by Stephen Hebron Printed in Belgium by Albe De Coker Front Image: William Blake, Dante and Virgil Among the Blasphemers, c. 1824 – 27 (detail). Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Mass., Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop, 1943.433. Back Image: Louis François Roubiliac, William Hogarth , 1741. National Portrait Gallery. Frontispiece: David Bindman, © President and Fellows of Harvard College. Photo by Kris Snibbe/ Harvard Staff Photographer. Contents Foreword: Celebrating David Bindman 7 caroline elam PART I: SCULPTURE 1. Introduction: Carving a Niche in Sculptural History 12 Tessa Murdoch 2. Netherlandish Allegories of Madness in English Perspective 16 Léon e. Lock 3. Michael Rysbrack’s Sculpture Series for Queen Caroline’s Library 27 at St James’s Palace Joanna Marschner 4. Roubiliac’s Hogarth and the Playful Portrait Bust 37 Malcolm Baker 5. Spinning the Thread of Life: The Three Fates, Time and Eternity 47 Tessa Murdoch 6. Collecting a Canon: The Earl of Northumberland at 55 Northumberland House and Syon House Joan Coutu 7. Eccentric Pioneers? Patrons of Modern Sculpture for Britain c.1790 66 Julius Bryant 8. Canova and Thorvaldsen at Chatsworth 77 Alison Yarrington 9. William Wyon as a Pupil and Follower of Flaxman 89 Mark Jones PART II: DRAWINGS, WATERCOLOURS & PAINTINGS 10. Introduction: ‘A close inspection’ of British Paintings and Drawings, 100 ‘within the context of their own time’ Kim Sloan 11. ‘The gipsey-race my pity rarely move’? Representing the Gypsy in 105 George Morland’s Morning, or the Benevolent Sportsman Nick Grindle 12. The Face of Saartjie Baartman: Rowlandson, Race and the 115 ‘Hottentot Venus’ Alison E. Wright 13. Blake, Linnell and Varley and A Treatise on Zodiacal Physiognomy 126 Martin Butlin [ 6 ] contents 14. William Blake’s Sodomites 136 Martin Myrone 15. Edward Harding and Queen Charlotte 146 Jane Roberts 16. John Everett Millais, James Wyatt of Oxford and a Volume of 160 Retzsch’s Outlines to Shakespeare : a Missing Link Stephen Calloway 17. An Aesthetic Sitter on an Empire Sofa: William Blake Richmond’s 171 Portrait of Mrs Luke Ionides Mark Evans 18. ‘A dose of Paradise’: Some Effects of Renaissance Drawings on 180 Victorian Artists Susan Owens PART III: PRINTS 19. Introduction: A Fine Line: Collecting, Communication and 192 the Printed Image Diana Dethloff 20. ‘I will not alter an Iota for any Mans Opinion upon Earth’: 197 James Gillray’s Portraits of William Pitt the Younger Simon Turner 21. Amorous Antiquaries: Sculpture and Seduction in Rowlandson’s 207 Erotica Danielle Thom 22. Infernal Machines in Nineteenth-Century France 215 Richard Taws 23. Wood-engravings from the Collection of Francis Douce at the 224 Ashmolean Museum Mercedes CerÓn 24. ‘The Human Element’: The Contribution of C.R.W. Nevinson 234 and Eric Kennington to the Britain’s Efforts and Ideals Lithographic Project of 1917 Jonathan Black 25. Idea and Reality: Edvard Munch and the Woodcut Technique 243 Ute Kuhlemann Falck 26. John Heartfield: A Political Artist’s Exile in London 253 Anna Schultz David Bindman’s Publications 265 Tabula Gratulatoria 273 Image Credits 276 [ 7 ] Foreword: Celebrating David Bindman CAROLINE ELAM In 1966, the year he published his first article on Blake (see David Bindman’s Publications, p.267), David saw an advertisement in the Personal Column on the front page of The Times , offering for sale a painting of The Raising of Jairus’s Daughter by the obscure English artist and Keeper of the Royal Academy, Henry Thomson (1773 – 1843). Still a penniless Ph.D. student at the Courtauld Institute, but already an avid collector of long standing, David was intrigued by an ambitious biblical subject exhibited at the RA in 1820. He offered the owner £50 on the spot and hired a van to remove the picture from Cranbury Park, Hampshire, where it had been stored behind the organ in the chapel. He took it to the Conservation Department at the Courtauld, then in Portman Square, but, with its contemporary frame, it was too large to go through the door. Realising its fundamental unsuitability for his own or any other private collection, David offered the picture to the Tate, which took it as a probably unexhibitable gift to the Friends of the Tate Gallery and stored it in a boiler cupboard. The canvas remained in limbo and unaccessioned for forty-six years until rediscovered and rehabilitated by Martin Myrone, who had it conserved and reunited with its original frame. It is now prominently displayed in the cur- rent Tate Britain chronological re-hang, improbably sandwiched between a Turner Intro.1. Henry Thomson, The Raising of Jairus’s Daughter , exhibited 1820. Oil on canvas, 241.4 × 299 cm (Tate, presented anonymously 2012) [ 8 ] elam and a Constable. The label reads ‘Presented anonymously, 2012’, and in a thorough account of the painting’s provenance and rediscovery in the online catalogue entry by Thomas Ardill, the 1966 purchaser is described simply as ‘a distinguished art his- torian’. But, since his identity can be traced via a story in The Times (9 March 1967), referenced in a footnote, it is perhaps not too indiscreet to re-reveal it now. The story epitomizes so many of David’s qualities: his compulsive and quixotic collecting, the breadth of his interests, his generosity, and the lasting effects of his teaching on the curatorial direction of museums – since Martin Myrone is one of the former pupils who have contributed to this Festschrift for David’s 75th birthday (see p.136). And, crucially, both picture and story have their comic side. Presented to him on his 75th birthday, this volume is above all a tribute to David from his former students – though a few colleagues who were not his pupils have crept in by the side door. The editors of the three sections all studied with David as undergraduates or graduate students at Westfield College and one went on to be his colleague at UCL. Their introductions give an invaluable picture of David’s teach- ing methods and principles, in which ideas and objects have always been central, indissolubly combined and mutually explanatory, pursued hand in hand with per- sonal and institutional art collecting. The contents of the book are divided according to the media across which David’s research and teaching have ranged – sculpture, paintings and drawings, and prints – and the essays within each section are arranged chronologically. These are traditional choices, but the categories could as easily have been thematic. And while some themes are well-established – there are valu- able essays here on patronage, collecting and iconography, on the interrelationship between technique and stylistic change – others engage with more recent meth- odological currents in the study of visual culture: the representation of race, gen- der, sexuality, political violence and propaganda, exile, notions of the canon. This plurality of approaches is a reflection of David’s own research trajectory, which has embraced theoretical innovation without ever relinquishing historical rigour or a beady-eyed engagement with the object. He has been able to reconcile opposing factions in art history not just with tolerance but with enthusiasm. And from the very beginning, there has always been a radical and ethical dimension to his research and writing. In addition to the tributes to David embodied in these essays and made explicit in authors’ acknowledgments, copious further reminiscences and anecdotes may be found in an accompanying, privately published booklet, which takes its title from his recent struggles with the US visa authorities – David Bindman: An Alien of Extraordinary Ability The Editors would like to thank many people who have made these volumes such a pleasure to prepare. Lara Speicher and Jaimee Biggins, of the newly re-launched UCL Press, welcomed the proposal for Burning Bright with enthusiasm from the outset; we are very proud to be included in the Press’s first year of publication. (In accordance with its Open Access policies, this book will be available online.) Out of friendship for David, Stephen Hebron of the Bodleian Library gave up his free time in an exceptionally busy year to design the volume: it is entirely thanks to him that it looks so beautiful. Frances Carey has been essential to the whole process, supply- ing ceaseless quantities of information and moral support, and compiling the list of David’s publications. Monica Sidhu has, among many other things, masterminded the record-keeping and acknowledgement of donations. John Banks was the expert copy-editor. Hugo Chapman allowed various corners of the Department of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum to be used for clandestine editorial meetings celebrating david bindman [ 9 ] over a long period, and the Students’ Room to host the formal presentation. To ensure the viability of the project it was essential to raise money for publication costs – not exactly crowd-funding, given our attempts at secrecy, but an appeal to friends and supporters of David to subscribe in advance. The names of donors and contributors are listed in a Tabula Gratulatoria on p. 273 and we are immensely grate- ful to them for their response to badgering emails. Special thanks are due to The Paul Mellon Centre for British Art and to The Henry Moore Foundation for their prompt and generous grants, to the Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences and the Department of History of Art at UCL (particularly Frederic Schwartz and Daniela Hernandez Tanner), and to an individual who was the very first to respond, sending a large cheque by return of post. Finally, I would like to thank my fellow Editors, Diana Dethloff, Tessa Murdoch and Kim Sloan, for inviting me to join their joyful sororial collective. [ 10 ] sculpture · author Part I ScUlpTURe Opposite: see Fig.7.3 [ 12 ] 1 Introduction: Carving a Niche in Sculptural History Tessa Murdoch The spring term of 1975 at Westfield College, West Hampstead, saw a small group of second-year undergraduates from Westfield and UCL specialising in the ‘Baroque period’ assemble for David Bindman’s class on English and French Sculpture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Günter Kowa 1 and Carol Blackett-Ord (née Scott-Fox) 2 were amongst them. I still have my notes from this inspiring course and the essay I wrote on the use of drawings and sketch models in English sculpture. David took us to the Foundling Hospital, St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey to view sculpture in the context of architecture and painting. He invited the V&A curator Charles Avery to introduce the French eighteenth-century sculpture in the V&A’s Jones galleries; bronze portrait reliefs by Bouchardon of Louis XV and the Dauphin were compared with contemporary French portrait medals, extending our interest in and engagement with decorative art and our understanding of the curatorial viewpoint. David’s typed class hand-out ‘Sculptures in the V&A for spe- cial study’ singles out, under ‘French’, Houdon’s busts of Voltaire 3 and The Marquis de Miromesnil , Pigalle’s bust of J.R. Perronet , Pajou’s bust of M.J. Sedaine , Clodion’s Cupid and Pysche , Falconet’s Allegory of Sculpture and Bathing nymph and Lemoyne’s bust of The Comtesse de Feuquères , masterpieces which have all been selected for the V&A’s new European Galleries which open in December 2015. 4 For English sculpture we were to focus on Delvaux’s Vertumnus and Pomona , Scheemakers’s bust of Viscount Cobham , Roubiliac’s Handel seated and busts of Jonathan Tyers and Alexander Pope , Rysbrack’s Relief of the Allegory of Charity , Wilton’s bust of Dr Cocchi , Nollekens’s Castor and Pollux and Monument to Sir John Tyrell , Thomas Banks’s Thetis dropping Achilles in the River Styx and bust of Dr Anthony Addington , Flaxman’s Michael over- 1. Günter Kowa is an art journalist and has published Grazia e delicatezza: Ein deutscher Maler in Italien: Ignaz Stens Leben und Werk, 1679 – 1748 , Bonn, 1986; Architektur der Englischen Gotik , Cologne, 1990; and Kardinal Albrecht und die Renaissance in Halle , Halle, 2007. 2. Carol Blackett-Ord joined the National Portrait Gallery in 1980 and contributed as a researcher to the exhibition Handel , 1985, and jointly authored the publication F.X. Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe , 1987. From 1996, she was picture researcher for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Recent publications include with S. Turner, ‘Early mezzotints: prints published by Richard Thompson and Alexander Browne’, Walpole Society , LXX (2008); with F. Pollak, L. Wrapson, Print Quarterly: An Index 1994 – 2003 , London, 2009, and ‘Shaping the master: the emergence of Donatello in nineteenth- century Britain’, Sculpture Journal , 22 (2013). 3. The Voltaire is now considered to be nineteenth century – see Alicia Robinson, ‘Houdon and Voltaire: an attribution reconsidered’, Sculpture Journal , 21 (2012), pp.97 – 103 – but the Miromesnil is a splendid example of Houdon’s portrait style. 4. For a celebration in print of these new galleries see Elizabeth Miller and Hilary Young, The Arts of Living: Europe 1600 – 1815 , London, 2015. carving a niche [ 13 ] coming Satan , and Coade and Sealy’s Monument to Sir William Hillman 5 ‘Terracottas and Models’ are listed with the location of the finished commission, encouraging a comparison of the preparatory model with the completed work. We examined the creative process of a sculpture; the design, often contrib- uted by an architect, the preparatory sketch, whether drawn or modelled and the intended setting. 6 Studying sculpture in the round was essential to full appreciation. Writing about the marble statue of Handel for Vauxhall Gardens led to the terra- cotta model in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, and to engravings showing its original setting in those South London pleasure gardens. Contemporary responses to the sculpture were important, and Dr Matthew Maty’s poem describing a visitor’s surprise on encountering the statue of a famous contemporary composer captures that moment of recognition. 7 A visit to David Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare at Hampton led to an appreciation of the original lighting source for that statue, alas now skied in the British Library foyer, St Pancras. The intended setting for sculpture was an essential consideration; this was vital training for making future curatorial decisions when placing sculpture on exhibition. The political agenda behind contemporary patronage enriched our awareness of the historical circumstances. A sculptor’s reputation owed much to his experience through training and travel. A visit to Rome added to credentials as it demonstrated cultural enrichment and awareness of the classical past, so central to the curriculum of a patron’s education. Establishing a sculptor’s network of contacts, through his personal circumstances, membership of a church or Masonic lodge, threw light on the social and political influences on an artist’s work. David is an outstandingly gifted teacher, questioning our reactions and encour- aging us to think and research for ourselves. Finding new evidence for attribution might result from ferreting in archives, household bills, inventories and bank accounts, talking to other scholars and curators, perusing their notes and reading contemporary accounts – David championed George Vertue’s Note Books , John Flaxman’s Lectures on Sculpture , London, 1829, J.T. Smith’s Nollekens and His Times , 1828 (1920 edition) and recommended acquiring Hugh Phillips’s remarkable study Mid-Georgian London (1964) – all sources which I still treasure and refer to regularly. 8 David’s excitement when he located Mrs Esdaile’s papers for her 1928 book on Roubiliac was palpable. His own writings on sculpture set pinnacles of achievement. Julius Bryant writes In the vast and distinguished Bindman bibliography one should not under- estimate the impact of the modest early potboilers. As a schoolboy my eyes first popped at the pages of photographs of works by Bernini, Falconet, Canova and all as illustrated in his Studio Vista pocket paperback European Sculpture from Bernini to Rodin (1970). Years later, when I told its author this, he 5. Cobham , Handel , Pope and Tyers , Rysbrack’s Allegory of Charity and Nollekens’s Castor and Pollux are in the V&A’s British Galleries, but the others are in the Hintze Sculpture Galleries. 6. John Physick, Designs for English Sculpture, 1680 – 1860 , London, 1969, was an invaluable source for this quest. 7. Published in French in the Mercure de France , November 1750. Dr Maty, Under Librarian of the fledgling British Museum, presented a series of busts by Roubiliac bought at his posthumous sale; see Aileen Dawson, Portrait Sculpture: A Catalogue of the British Museum Collection c.1675 – 1975 , London, 1999. 8. Hugh Phillips also left a bequest to the V&A to purchase acquisitions of eighteenth-century works of art, so his name continues to glow with gratitude on museum labels. [ 14 ] sculpture · murdoch recalled buying a pile of remaindered copies and the comforting words at the till when he explained he had written it: ‘Don’t worry mate – it ’appens to the best of ’em, even Arold Robbins.’ I regret lending a friend my copy but hope it has inspired a lifetime’s enjoy- ment. David’s jointly authored Mitchell-prize-winning book on Roubiliac and the 18th Century Monument: Sculpture as Theatre and his recent study Canova and Thorvaldsen span the last twenty years and frame a plethora of books and articles. David’s ongoing editorial role for the Harvard series on the Image of the Black in Western Art and his regular teaching at Harvard lead us to anticipate yet more exciting fruit from his energetic and fertile engagement with early modern European cultural achievements. Contributors to these essays on sculpture have all benefited from working alongside David as mentor, collaborator or student. Their range of interests and influences demonstrates the wide harvest that David has reaped – belied by his affec- tionate nickname ‘Bindweed’, 9 although it neatly summarises the common bond which his former students treasure and has resulted in the demonstrable commit- ment represented by this volume. The present tribute stretches geographically from California to China. It percolates through the offices of the Art Fund, the galleries of the British Museum, the libraries of the Courtauld Institute, the historic rooms and libraries of royal palaces, Tate and the V&A. Joanna Marschner, who contributes on Rysbrack’s busts for Queen Caroline’s Library at St James’s Palace, remembers: Arriving at Westfield College, as an undergraduate, in the autumn of 1976, was incredibly exciting. David Bindman was an inspiring teacher, introducing so many of the art treasures London had to offer. Later, with Professor Helen Weston, he kindly agreed to be supervisor for my PhD. I never forget our wide-ranging conversations, after which I always returned to the library or archive re-energised. We have all received generous acknowledgement where we have assisted with David’s publications and our own academic achievements have been marked by appropriate gifts. A portrait of Guillaume Coustou, under whose authority Roubiliac studied at the Academy in Paris engraved by N. de L’Armessin to mark his own reception by the Paris Academy in 1730, was the unexpected additional reward for completing my doctorate under David’s supervision. His excitement at some new find was announced with glee, and opportunities for students to acquire origi- nal drawings were generously shared. At a recent encounter in Harvard, David con- fessed to acquiring a bust by Mestrovic of Mrs Eumorfopoulos, wife of the notable collector of Oriental ceramics, 10 but a frustration as to how he could display this at home. A generous proposal to lend this new acquisition to the V&A to mark the centenary of that first Mestrovic exhibition in 1915 is characteristic of David’s enthusiastic excitement in sharing the fruits of his actual or virtual hunting expedi- 9. I learnt of this in 1989 from Charlotte Gere who told me that it was much used at the British Museum, where David’s frequent presence and contributions are widely appreciated. 10. Mestrovic’s bust of George Eumorfopoulos (1863 – 1939) was given by her husband’s executors to the British Museum in 1944; Aileen Dawson, Portrait Sculpture: A Catalogue of the British Museum Collection c.1675 – 1975 , London, 1999, no.30, pp.93 – 95. carving a niche [ 15 ] tions. His wide-ranging engagement with cultural exchange and cross-fertilisation between disciplines is wonderfully captured in this enduring anecdote contributed by Malcolm Baker. In 1982 David and Malcolm Baker went to Poland to give papers at a confer- ence entitled ‘Rococo Sculpture in Europe, with an Emphasis on the Lvovian School’, Malcolm speaking on Roubiliac’s European background and David on the English context of the sculptor’s work. (This was the start of their col- laboration on the book on Roubiliac’s monuments.) Taking place at a time when the communist regime was being challenged by the Solidarity move- ment, the conference was peripatetic, crossing Poland and ending up in a castle in the Tatra mountains where the lecture hall was a converted cellar. Intending to show Roubiliac’s religious qualities by accompanying the resur- rection of the body in Hargrave monument with the sounds of ‘The trum- pet shall sound!’, David had set off with a tape of the Messiah in his pocket. Unfortunately, this had been seized by Polish customs. (It was the time when the communist regime was being challenged by Solidarity and was especially wary of English art historians importing eighteenth-century sacred music.) Undeterred, David used all his considerable powers of persuasion to prompt a very nervous Malcolm to stand up at the appropriate moment and declaim the Handelian passage rather hesitantly from the audience. Fortunately, the dramatic effect of David’s performance was not entirely lost because of a poor-quality soloist. Polish and German art historians rallied and enthusi- astically sang ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’. Shortly afterwards David turned to the theme of the English and melancholy; no sooner had he started reciting some lines from Young’s Night Thoughts than, just at the right time, there was a loud fluttering sound, for the recitative had awoken the bats and the German chairman had to burst in with the words, ‘Achtung! Fledermaus!’ Victoria and Albert Museum [ 16 ] 2 Netherlandish Allegories of Madness in English Perspective Léon E. Lock In the Middle Ages, people with a mental disturbance generally remained embedded in social and family life, even if the ‘furious mad’ were usually chained and/or locked up. Hospitals could also have a separate section for those whom rela- tives were no longer able to control, 1 while specialised institutions appeared only later. The oldest in Europe is Bethlem (or Bedlam) Hospital in London (general hos- pital from 1247; specialised hospital from 1357). Further foundations were established in Valencia (1409), Zaragoza (1429), Seville and Valladolid (1436). In the Northern Netherlands, the oldest madhouse was founded in 1442 at ’s-Hertogenbosch, by Reinier van Arckel, to house six inmates. Separate from the church, this asylum was run by local citizens. Then followed madhouses at Utrecht (1461) and Amsterdam (1562). Until the nineteenth century, the insane were interned without special medical treatment. Influenced by the ideas of the Enlightenment, a gradual humanisation took place. The French physician Philippe Pinel (1745 – 1826) was the first, followed by Jean-Etienne-Dominique Esquirol (1772 – 1840), to release psychiatric patients from their handcuffs and grant them a more humane treatment. This new therapy, psychological rather than physical, was geared towards teaching a rational self- discipline. Pinel’s Dutch counterpart was Jacob Schroeder van der Kolk (1797 – 1862), who wanted to make his patients useful to society instead of locking them up like dangerous animals in a zoo. This new mindset produced, on 29 May 1841, the first Dutch law concerning the insane and, in 1849, the opening of the first psychiatric institute in the Netherlands, at Bloemendaal. 2 The Amsterdam Dolhuis (madhouse) was founded by the city of Amsterdam with 3,000 guilders given by Hendrik Pauwelsz. Boelenssen, 3 whose wife had been bitten during her pregnancy by a madwoman. Around an interior garden sur- rounded by a colonnade resembling a cloister, were organised individual cells each with a bed, a cesspit and a system of two doors to the gallery. The first of these doors, which always remained closed, was equipped with an opening the size of a It is with joy and gratitude that I recall the stimulating discussions with colleagues, particularly Karl Clausberg, Michel Maupoix, Frits Scholten, Anna Trobec and Emile van Binnebeke. All my thanks also go to my employer, the Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Vlaanderen, which permits me to carry out this research in the Department of Architecture of the University of Leuven. 1. J.-M. Fritz, ‘Expériences médiévales de la folie: le fou aux multiples visages’, in J. Toussaint ed., Pulsion(s): Images de la folie du Moyen-Age au siècle des Lumières , Namur, 2012, pp.11 – 37, esp. p.12. 2. F.J.M. Schmidt, Entwicklung der Irrenpflege in den Niederlanden: Vom Tollhaus bis zur gesetzlich anerkannten Irrenanstalt , Herzogenrath, 1985; L. van den Berg, Rijp voor paviljoen III. Krankzinnig in Amsterdam vanaf 1565 , Amsterdam, 1989. 3. M. Fokkens, Beschrijvinge der Wijdt-vermaarde Koop-stadt Amstelredam , Amsterdam, 1662, p.285. head to allow the passage of food; the other was closed only when the inmate was not ‘tameable’ and became too noisy. 4 Occasionally the Dolhuis was open to the public so visitors could come and admire these ‘living curiosities’ and the statue of a madwoman at the centre of the garden (Fig. 2.1). Those patients from well-to-do families who were self-funded were housed on the first floor, away from public view. 5 The institution originally housed eleven inmates, the symbolic number of disciples after Judas’s betrayal. Successive extensions increased the number of indi- vidual cells to fifty-three. They were administered daily by a steward and his wife who lived on site. A doctor assisted when an inmate was injured or was ‘physically’ ill. 6 In 1792 the city decided to move the insane asylum to the Buitengasthuis , located outside the city, and to demolish the Dolhuis. The Allegory of Folly , now in the Rijksmuseum (Fig. 2.1) comes from the inner garden of the Amsterdam Dolhuis. 7 The statue depicts a mad- woman, naked, sitting uncomfortably on a stool-shaped trunk covered with straw, with drapery girding her loins, her right leg bent backwards. She contorts her torso to the right, her arms half outstretched while vehemently pulling her long hair upwards with her left hand and downwards with her right. Thus her arms and hair form a figure ‘8’ with her head placed in the middle. Her face expresses great fear; she screams with all her might, her mouth wide open and her tongue sticking out. The pedestal, with deep mouldings, is adorned on each side with a high relief each showing an inmate looking through an opening – a peephole – just big enough for the head and four fingers (Fig. 2.2a – d). The first description of the statue of the madwoman appears in 1662 in the pub- lished description of the city of Amsterdam by Melchior Fokkens: ‘inside there is a large courtyard and garden, in the middle of which is placed a statue of a naked woman on a pedestal, representing fury or madness; her hair hangs over her naked body, she pulls her hair like crazy’. 8 The following year the work was illus- trated in an engraving in another guidebook, by Olfert Dapper (Fig. 2.3). The statue is clearly recognisable, as is the head in relief on the pedestal. The engraving shows that the statue occupied the centre of a garden with flower beds on one side (the other side separated by an arbour, was grassed over for bleaching linen). Dapper’s description of the statue indicates that she is crying. 9 4. ‘niet te bestieren’, O. Dapper, Historische Beschryving der Stadt Amsterdam , Amsterdam, 1663, p.435. 5. C. Commelin, Beschryvinge van Amsterdam , Amsterdam, 1693, II, p.579. 6. Dapper, op. cit . (note 4), p.435. 7. Museum number BK-AM-38. 8. ‘van binnen is een groote vierkante plaats / en Tuyn / daar in’t midden op een Voetstuck een naackte Vrouwe beeldt staat / uytbeeldende de raserny of dulligheyt / ’t haar hanght heur over ’t naakte lijf / sy grijpt en treckt op’t haar als rasende’. Fokkens, op. cit . (note 3), p.285. 9.‘In’t midden van’t bloemperk wort de krankzinnigheit in steen door een stene naekte vrouw, die op een voetstal staet en als uitzinnig ’t hair by’t hooft heeft hangen, en’t selve al wenende met de handen uittrekt, uitgebeelt.’ Dapper, op. cit . (note 4), p.435. allegories of madness [ 17 ] Fig.2.1 Attributed to Artus Quellin the Elder (Antwerp 1609 – 68), Madness , c. 1650 – 62. Stone, height of statue with with pedestal 295 cm; statue 162 × 65 × 62 cm (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) Fig.2.2 a–d Attributed to Artus Quellin the Elder, Heads of Inmates , c.1650 – 62. Stone relief, height of pedestal 133 cm (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam) a c b d allegories of madness [ 19 ] Fig.2.3 Anonymous engraver, ‘The madhouse of Amsterdam’, published in Olfert Dapper, Historische Beschryving der Stadt Amsterdam , Amsterdam, 1663. 29.6 × 42.2 cm (Léon Lock) There are no archival documents concerning the statue, 10 or descriptions of it from the early seventeenth century. Following a plethora of stylistic arguments initi- ated by Juliane Gabriels in 1930, 11 followed by Jaap Leeuwenberg and Willy Halsema- Kubes, 12 Frits Scholten 13 and Titia de Haseth Möller, 14 the old attribution to Hendrick de Keyser (1565 – 1621) and his principal assistant Gerrit Lambertsz. (c.1595 – 1667), can be definitively ruled out. Instead, the attribution to Artus Quellin the Elder (1609 – 68) is fully convincing, with a dating between 1650 (Quellin’s arrival in Amsterdam) and 1662 (the year of Fokkens’s publication). The contextual historical elements outlined below confirm the attribution to the most important sculptor of the Low Countries in the seventeenth century, who decorated with marble what was in the eyes of his contemporaries the eighth wonder of the world – the town hall of Amsterdam, currently a royal palace. On each of the four sides of the sculpture’s pedestal (Fig. 2.2), a vertical panel is pierced by a rectangular aperture from which heads of inmates emerge. These peephole panels refer to the interior doors of the asylum’s cells, equipped with a shutter to allow the passage of daily food rations. The heads are alternately male 10. J. Gabriëls, Artus Quellien de Oude, ‘kunstrijk belthouwer’ , Antwerp, 1930, p.152, note 233. 11. J. Gabriëls, ‘“De Razernij” of “Dolhuisvrouw” van het Nederlandsch Museum’, Oudheidkundig Jaarboek , X, 1930, p. 171, and Gabriëls, op. cit . (note 10). 12. J. Leeuwenberg and W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum , ’s-Gravenhage/ Amsterdam, 1973, no.302, pp.228 – 30. 13. F. Scholten, Artus Quellinu:. Beeldhouwer van Amsterdam , Amsterdam, 2010, pp.54 – 55. 14. T. de Haseth Möller, entry in the forthcoming catalogue of sculpture in the Rijksmuseum.